List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: THE ATTIC EXPEDITIONS (2001)

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This post was originally lost in the Great Server Crash of 2010; the article was partially recovered from Google cache, and the rest of the text was recreated. Sorry, original comments were irretrievably lost in cyberspace.

DIRECTED BY: Jeremy Kasten

FEATURING: Andras Jones, , Jeffrey Combs, Beth Bates, Ted Raimi

PLOT: Awakening from a dream to find himself on an operating table, an amnesiac is informed that he is a schizophrenic murderer who has been committed to a private institution and is now being sent to a halfway home—nicknamed “the House of Love”—to be rehabilitated.

Scene from The Attic Expeditions (2001)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: The Attic Expeditions sounds echoes of some (better) weird movies: Jacob’s Ladder (in the way that the script offers different possible explanations for the protagonist’s hallucinations, and jerks the viewer back and forth between those theories) and Donnie Darko (in that it seems the director intended to tell a fantastical story that “made sense” on a literal level, but lost control of the story when he took it one paradox too far). An interesting, confusing, out-of-control picture, it’s as fascinating for its misses as for its hits. It falls just short of a general recommendation, but it is recommended to anyone interested in psychological, mindbending horror seasoned with heaping doses of confusion and who isn’t a stickler for great acting. This is the kind of curious, singular picture that could wind up filling one of the final slots in the List.

COMMENTS: Trevor Blackburn may be a schizophrenic murderer, or he may be an amnesiac sorcerer, or he may be the victim of an unethical psychological experiment; or he may be all three. It’s impossible to tell, especially since The Attic Expeditions is full of contradictions and contains segments where the timeline suddenly resets and the action repeats itself with slight variations. The mystery promiscuously throws out clues, but every possible explanation for Trevor’s woes seems chained to its own refutation. Trevor is an unreliable narrator in triplicate: he’s a definite amnesiac, a possible schizophrenic, and, to top it all off, his state-appointed guardian appears to be deliberately playing with his loose grip on reality. Psychiatrist Dr. Ek (played by Jefferey Combs as a variation on Herbert West as a pot-smoking, skin-popping headshrinker) uses Trevor as a case study for an experiment in Continue reading LIST CANDIDATE: THE ATTIC EXPEDITIONS (2001) →

Miscellanea

WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE

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First off, a very happy and disturbingly bizarre Mother’s Day to all the weird moms out there!

Next week on 366 Weird Movies you can look forward to the following reviews: The Attic Expeditions (2001), a mindbending mix of occultism and psychiatric experimentation, and just plain B-movie battiness; the upcoming Catechism Cataclysm (2011), a road trip movie for the lapsed Catholic in all of us; Maelstrom (2000), a Quebecois drama of extreme guilt narrated by a dying fish; and Tod Browning’s White Tiger (1923), whose plot involves a jewelry heist, incest, and a mechanical chess player.  There’s always a possibility we’ll throw a bonus mystery review into the mix, as well.

Frankly, we found the past week to be a letdown when it came to weird search terms used to locate the site.  We considered nominating “cuckold is pushed too far and pulls gun on wifes bull” as our weirdest search term of the week, until we learned that this phrase actually has a perfectly sensible meaning meaning with the cuckold fetish community (are we the only ones who find it depressing that cuckold fetish communities even exist?)  We briefly considered “american movie with a weird conversation on a mole” just because we like the mental image it conjures.  Things were so bleak that we finally threw up our hands and went with the prosaic “animated alien head for penis” as our weirdest search term of the week.  Try to step up the bizarrity next week, will you, Google searchers?

Here’s how the reader-suggested review queue stands (more titles after the break, as always): The Attic Expeditions (restored review coming next week); Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (this appears to be unavailable at present, actually); The Nines; The Pillow Book; Final Flesh; Lunacy [Sílení]; Inmortel (2004); Continue reading WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE →

Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 5/6/2011

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A look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…

Trailers of new release movies are generally available on the official site links.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

Caterpillar (2010): The Japanese emperor declares a deaf-mute quadruple amputee a Sino-Japanese war hero and orders his wife to take care of him—including sexually.  Not so surreal, but certainly unusual, and the scenario recalls the weird anti-war classic Johnny Got His Gun.  Playing at the IFC Center in Manhattan this week, no information on other screenings.  Caterpillar at IFC Center.

Daydream Nation: A love triangle between a teen girl, an age-appropriate boyfriend, and their English teacher.  The press release calls it a “mash-up of the bizarre and the beautiful” and two separate reviewers have compared it to Donnie Darko; whatever weirdness might lurk within, cautious producers are keeping it out of the trailer.  Daydream Nation official site.

Hobo With a Shotgun: Hobo Rutger Hauer grabs a shotgun and sweeps scum off the street in this long-awaited (in some quarters) 1970s exploitation tribute.  Like last year’s Machete, it’s not a weird movie per se, but it has impeccable cult credentials: the project originated as the winner of the fake trailer contest to promote Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez‘ Grindhouse.  Hobo With a Shotgun official site.

I’m Not Jesus Mommy: There’s a title for you, and apparently it actually describes the plot: a young boy is cloned from blood from the Shroud of Turin (!) and the Tribulation starts around the time of his birth.  Is it an inspirational horror movie, or someone’s idea of a joke?  Playing Minneapolis, with a showing in Duluth to follow.  I’m Not Jesus Mommy official site.

Passion Play (2010):  Fantasy fairy-tale starring Mickey Rourke as a jazz musician and Megan Fox as a “Bird Woman,” also with Bill Murray and a grown-up midnight movie teen idol Bud Cort.  It flopped at the Toronto International Film Festival and currently holds a remarkable 0% at Rotten Tomatoes, but if there’s really something wrong with it, we’d like to see for ourselves.  Playing New York and Los Angeles only (look for the DVD soon).  Passion Play official site.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

The Power of the Dark Crystal (est. 2011):  We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention this sequel (of sorts) to the 1982 cult puppet movie Dark Crystal (read our review), which now involves a girl made of fire (?) using a shard of the titular crystal to save a planet’s dying sun.  (We’d also be remiss if we didn’t mention that a reader, Jocko, reminded us about the project).  In 3D (of course); Jim Henson is involved, Frank Oz is not.  Power of the Dark Crystal fan blog.   

NEW ON DVD:

The Lickerish Quartet (1970): This classy seventies softcore erotic feature from the stylish Radley Metzger features uncertain identities and surrealistic sex scenes, such as the one where a couple make love on a floor covered with dictionary entries. This is a recently restored relic from the era of arty dirty movies, just before hardcore porn killed off erotica.  Buy The Lickerish Quartet.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

What Dreams May Come (1998):  Based on a novel by Richard (“The Box“) Matheson, the story sends Robin Williams through the afterlife (both Heaven and Hell) in search of his wife.  The film won an Oscar for “Best Visual Effects” and is currently in our reader-suggested review queue.  Buy What Dreams May Come [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

The Nines (2007): The stories of a self-destructive actor under house arrest, a writer trying to get a pilot made into a series, and a video game designer lost in the woods converge in a strange way in this oddly conceived metaphysical mystery that coincidentally happens to be coming up soon in our reader-suggested review queue.  Watch The Nines free on YouTube.

What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

TOD BROWNING’S THE DEVIL DOLL (1936)

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In his next to last film, Tod Browning revisits the same territory as The Unholy Three (1925), with a surreal twist.  The Devil Doll (1936) is based on Abraham Merritt’s novel “Burn, Witch, Burn,” with a screenplay by Guy Endore, Erich von Stroheim, and Browning.  Lionel Barrymore, who had a long collaborative history with Browning, stars as escaped convict Paul Lavond.

17 years earlier, Lavond had been sent to prison after being framed by three banking partners.  Lavond has escaped with a fellow convict, Marcel (Henry Walthall, another Browning regular) who just happens to be a mad scientist.  Together, they make it to Marcel’s home and wife, Malita (the hammy Rafaela Ottiano), who also is, conveniently, a mad scientist.  Marcel dies, but not before showing Lavond the scientific discovery that he and Malita have been working on for years.  They are able to shrink animals and people to a sixth of their normal size.  Considering all the problems with world food shortage, anyone could see the value of this discovery (!).  Anyone except Lavond, that is, who is a bit leery when he finds out the shrinking process wipes out memory cells and the subject’s willpower.

Still from The Devil Doll (1936)The three bankers who betrayed him are a new Unholy Three, a reprehensible trinity driven by love of money.  Lavond, Malita and Marcel are three societal outcasts who are despised and rejected.  Browning is committed to making sure we root for the underdog; quite the reversal of contemporary, evolved reality shows that deify the affluent top dogs.

Seeing a new potential vehicle for his revenge, Lavond is accompanied by Malita with a case full of shrunken critters in hand.  Lavond sets out on a Count of Monte Cristo mission, but considering this is a Tod Browning production, Lavond hardly dons a chivalrous persona like Robert Donat in the 1934 film.  Rather, he gets in old lady drag (a la Lon Chaney in The Unholy Three) and takes on the identity of Madame Mandilip, proprietress.

With a couple of six inch Tweedledees, Lavond, in his best Sweeney Todd fashion, opens up a doll shop (rather than a parrot shop or pie shop), exacts revenge, steals jewelery (which he hides in a toy, just like in Unholy Three) and sets out to find the holy child: his long lost daughter, Lorraine ( Maureen O’ Sullivan, aka Tarzan’s Jane). This is yet another frequently used Browning subplot of a severed father/daughter relationship.

What makes The Devil Doll unique is the science fiction angle and a female mad scientist in Ottiano (who has an Elsa Lanchester like streak in her hair).  By the time of The Devil Doll, Browning was comfortable with the sound medium and the film benefits from this newfound familiarity, fluid camera work, and the charmingly rudimentary FX for the incredible shrunken people.

As Lavond, Barrymore delivers a subdued, controlled performance.  In drag, Barrymore raises the ham meter considerably.  Although a sympathetic character, Barrymore conveys genuine creepiness in the revenge scenes as he enforces his will through the dolls by intense concentration.

Ironically, to proves his innocence, Lavond must again go into exile at the film’s end and must forever forsake his daughter.  The Devil Doll is a surrealist delight in its sheer lunacy.

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